Since I have no bread flour (I hope I will tomorrow), I attempted my first Sicilian using AP flour, it's local and it has less gluten than American AP flour. So it's close to cake flour but does have some bran and not 100% white. I'm posting it here cuz I used the Ischia instead of commercial yeast with room temperature fermentation. In the below recipe, the flour is a (85% AP flour + 15% semolina).

Mixing the dough was very simple since it's easy to develop gluten with the type of flour I used. In sequence, room temp. water (75 F), dissolve salt, Ischia, all flour mix. I mixed it with the beater for about 2 minutes on slow to combine the ingredients. Then I switch to the c-hook and kneaded the dough on max speed. Within 3 minutes the gluten started developing and the dough is no more stuck to the bottom of the bowl. I then rested the dough for 5 minutes while I prepared an oiled plastic container. I added the oil and resumed mixing on slow and assisted mixing the oil in. Then back on max speed for 3 more minutes. By the end, the dough looked very smooth. I shaped it into a kind-of ball and into the container.

The dough fermented for 19 hours at 75 F. At the 19th hour, the dough expanded to more than double. It seems the Ischia amount needs to be reduced. I transferred the dough to an oiled 15"x12" stainless steel pan and spreading the dough was very easy. I deflated the dough and oiled the top lightly in the pan and covered it. To avoid over-proofing, I placed it in a room that I just noticed today having a lower temperature than the rest of the house. It was 69 F. By the 24th hour, the dough has risen again nicely. I preheated the oven to 450F. I docked the dough with my fingers so it doesn't create large bubbles. It went into the middle rack of the oven naked for 5 minutes, I thought this would give a good oven spring and stiffen the crust before the toppings go on top. I took it out and applied the sauce, fresh mozzarella, dried basil and sea salt/garlic mix. It went back into the oven for 10 minutes and by the end, the mozzarella was melted but not cooked yet and the sauce was drying at the edge. There was also some excessive moisture released into the center. I took it out and applied more sauce (I don't like dry sauce). I also treated it with a generous sprinkling of grana padano and some low moisture/part skimmed mozzarella for contrast with the extra sauce I applied. It then went into the oven for 6 more minutes. That's a total of 21 minutes baking time. At the end, it again received some more grana padano.

The pizza was a winner for my kids because of the softness of the flour I used. I did like the texture the semolina added but I think the 24 hours room temp fermentation didn't help this AP flour to develop any flavor. Also, I think it needed 5 more minutes of baking as the bottom was not uniformly brown. The bottom of the edges had some charring-like spots and nice flavor that I wished was all over the pie, then I would've really liked it!

I couldn't do much about the texture of the crumb with this AP flour as I wanted more voids. Maybe next time I will let the dough bake more while it's still naked, it might develop more oven spring.

SaadP.S. Pete I just noticed this post doesn't serve the purpose of the thread much and you can move it to the Sicilian section if you think it's more suitable there.

Following up on my recent post in this thread at Reply 113 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7225.msg79195.html#msg79195, I decided to make another dough, also without commercial yeast or natural starter (that is, a wild yeast dough), but with oil and a form of sugar. For this experiment, I decided to modify the basic Lehmann NY style dough formulation. For the flour, I used King Arthur bread flour, and for the sugar I decided to use the Classic Ovaltine Malt. I have been wanting for some time to try the Ovaltine so I decided this was as good a time as any. The ingredients that go into the Classic Ovaltine Malt can be seen at Reply 20 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8796.msg76560.html#msg76560, where another member, ThePizzaBiatch, discussed the results he achieved using the Classic Ovaltine Malt. I normally would use 1% sugar for a Lehmann dough that is to be fermented for a few days (a cold fermentation), but I decided to use 1.33% Classic Ovaltine Malt since, according to the Classic Ovaltine Malt nutrition information, that product is essentially two thirds sugar.

The dough was prepared in essentially the same manner as previously described, except that the Classic Ovaltine Malt was dissolved in the water at the same time as the salt. The Classic Ovaltine Malt is fairly dark in color, and that color tinted the dough a light brown as a result. The water temperature I used was 42.7 degrees F. The finished dough temperature was 78.8 degrees F. To monitor the expansion of the dough during its fermentation, I used the poppy seed trick as described at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6914.0.html.

I didn’t know what to expect in terms of the fermentation of the dough. In particular, I wondered what effect the Classsic Ovaltine Malt, with 15 different ingredients, would have on the wild yeast in the dough (and also on the taste, color and texture of the finished crust). I also wondered what effect, if any, the oil would have on the wild yeast. Well, the answer started to emerge after 24 hours of fermentation at a room temperature in the range of 80-83 degrees F. Essentially nothing happened. I had been watching the dough over a good part of the 24-hour period and it was like watching paint dry. I did not see any hint of fermentation such as the tiny bubbles that typically form in a dough at the sides and bottom of the storage container. The spacing of the poppy seeds suggested that the dough had risen by about 9.7%, but it didn’t translate into a palpable fermentation to the naked eye. At 30 hours, the spacing of the poppy seeds widened a bit, suggesting signs of life. According to the spacing of the two poppy seeds, the dough had expanded by about 20%. The dough looked alive and healthy and I also started for the first time to detect tiny fermentation bubbles at the sides of the storage container. Finally, after 36 hours, things had started to pop, and the dough expansion reached 68.5%. By 38 hours, the dough had doubled in volume. Since I wasn’t ready to make pizza at that time (it was 7:30 in the morning), I put the dough, untouched and still in its container, into the refrigerator for another 4 hours or so, to be ready to use for lunch.

The dough was handled and shaped in the same manner as previously described. The dough was very soft out of its storage container, with a profusion of fermentation bubbles, and it was very extensible as I worked with it on my bench. To improve the handling of the dough, I removed it from the refrigerator about a half hour before I was ready to shape and stretch it out to size (14”). To minimize sticking to my peel, I used semolina flour on the peel. The pizza was dressed and baked in the same manner as previously described.

The photos below show the finished pizza. Overall, I thought the pizza was very good. It had a decided artisanal quality to it, with a rim that was crispy and crunchy like an artisan bread and with artisanal bread flavors. There was some bottom crust crispiness but otherwise the crumb and the rest of the crust were soft and chewy. The crust flavors and texture were very good but I detected some unfamiliar flavor components that perhaps came from using the Classic Ovaltine Malt. I haven’t yet decided if I like those flavor components. I will have to make another dough using just plain table sugar, or possibly honey. I will also have a chance to further assess the crust flavors when I reheat the leftover slices. But, whatever the final results, the experiment demonstrated that it is possible to ferment a "wild yeast only" dough at a fairly elevated room temperature for better than 35 hours and end up with a pretty good pizza.

I've been using between 1.4% and 2.0% Ovaltine Classic Malt Mix in my doughs for the last couple months, primarily because I've had the Ovaltine mix sitting in my cupboard for who knows how long (probably years), and that's not enough data for me to clear it as a beverage. I have found the results satisfactory.

Last summer, in the middle of August, member widespreadpizza (Marc) and I both made pizzas using room-temperature fermented doughs that comprised only flour, water and salt. No commercial yeast and no starter were used. Marc’s dough was leavened by wild New Hampshire yeast and mine was pretty much contemporaneously leavened by wild Texas yeast. It took Marc’s dough about 21 hours to double at room temperature and mine took about 30 hours to reach a double. Marc’s finished pizza, which was baked in his wood fired oven, can be seen in Reply 82 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7225.msg78756.html#msg78756. My pizza, which was baked in my standard home oven, is shown in Replies 84 and 85 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7225.msg78779.html#msg78779. Our success led me to wonder how a winter version of my dough might turn out. So, over the last three days I made another room temperature fermented dough with only flour, water and salt. The dough formulation was the same one that I posted in Reply 84 referenced above, specifically:

I prepared the dough in the same manner as the summer version. I simply placed the formula water in my mixer bowl, added the salt and stirred it to dissolve in the water. The water had been temperature adjusted to 100 degrees F in order to achieve a finished dough temperature of 80 degrees F, which I deemed necessary to start the fermentation process. Using the flat beater attachment and the stir speed of my KitchenAid stand mixer, I gradually added the flour to the water in the bowl and mixed it until the flour could no longer be hydrated, about two minutes. There was some loose flour in the bottom of the bowl, which I simply incorporated into the dough mass by hand, about another minute or so. I then switched to the C-hook, and with the mixer at speed 2, I kneaded the dough for 5-6 minutes. With a hydration of 57%, the dough was a bit on the stiff side but, as previously described, that hydration level was selected to be on the lower side to compensate for the wetness of the dough that I had experienced with the summer version after the long period of room temperature fermentation.

After shaping the dough into a round ball, I lightly oiled it and placed it into a one-quart Pyrex glass bowl and placed two poppy seeds at the top center part of the dough ball, in accordance with the poppy seed method described at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6914.0.html. After placing the lid on the bowl, I set the bowl aside on a countertop in my kitchen. At the time, the room temperature was around 63 degrees F. As it so happens, that is a temperature that is widely regarded as optimal for a room temperature fermented dough. The actual finished dough temperature was 75 degrees F.

The dough rose very slowly over the next few days. It wasn’t until about 72 hours of room temperature fermentation that the spacing of the poppy seeds indicated that the dough had doubled in volume. (As an aside, based on the poppy seed spacing, the dough had increased by 30% after the first day, and by 81% after the second day.) There was no dramatic visible expansion of the dough over the course of the three days of fermentation. It just gradually slumped and spread in the bowl. It also took on a gray cast, with spotting of the type I have observed before with doughs that are cold fermented for several days to a few weeks. The spotting was not particularly severe but it was clearly in evidence. There were very few fermentation bubbles--so few, in fact, that I wondered whether the dough had fermented at all, despite what the poppy seeds were trying to tell me. Over that three-day period, the outdoor temperature ranged from 28 degrees F to 50 degrees F. There was some fluctuation of my room temperature but it remained pretty much in the 63-65 degrees F range. Apparently that range is not conducive to dramatic volume expansion.

As with the summer version, I shaped the dough ball into a 14” skin. As I was doing this, I could see that the dough was, in fact, alive and a few bubbles presented themselves to compel me not to give up on the dough and to proceed further. Although the dough was not nearly as damp as the summer version and had little gluten degradation, and was overall of better physical quality, it was extensible. However, with ample dusting of my peel, the skin handled well. The pizza was dressed it pepperoni style and baked on a pizza stone that had been placed on the lowest oven rack position and preheated for an hour at around 525 degrees F. The pizza was baked on the pizza stone for six minutes, whereupon I moved it to the topmost oven rack position for about another minute or so to achieve additional top crust browning.

The photos below show the finished pizza. It was very similar to the summer version, with a fair amount of chewiness and some crispiness at the rim. It had the same artisanal characteristics of the summer version. Like the summer version, there was not a lot of oven spring. The crust flavors, however, were quite good.

I believe that with further experimentation it should be possible to improve upon the results I achieved. This was only my first winter version and, as is usually the case, the results suggest changes that might be made to future versions. For example, for the winter version, I think I would use a higher hydration. I might also make the skin a bit thicker. I also did not see the usual signs of overfermentation of the dough, even after 72 hours of room temperature fermentation. It’s possible that the dough could have held out for at least another day or so. But the latest experiment, taken together with the summer experiment, clearly demonstrates that is possible to make a simple and basic long, room-temperature fermented dough using only flour, water, salt, and whatever wild yeast is floating around when the dough is being prepared.

With a Room-Temp fermented dough, is it necessary to punch the dough down at any time?

I know at one point, Pete punched down his dough but it sounds like some here do not.

hotsawce,

It depends on the dough. If the gluten structure has been degraded by the long room-temperature fermentation, and especially if it looks and feels on the damp side, it is usually a good idea to do a few stretch and folds to strengthen the dough again and let it rest again before using. I found that I needed to do this sort of thing for a dough that was fermented in the summertime much more so than in the wintertime. Some dough recipes, like the Spangler dough recipe I used (my clone version), calls for multiple stretch and folds. So, I used them. The last dough I described, without any added commercial yeast or starter/preferment, did not need any punchdown or anything like that because it did not exhibit any of the indications of overproofing. I personally preferred the summertime version of that dough over the wintertime version because of the increased fermentation of the summertime version. I would rather contend with an overproofing situation that an underproofing situation.

While it is still cool where I am in Texas, I decided yesterday to make a “winter” version of the original “summer” dough formulation that I described in the opening post in this thread. However, rather than just increase the amount of yeast to compensate for the lower room temperature, I decided to also increase the hydration and the salt to the levels that I generally use for the Lehmann NY style dough formulation. I also added some oil, which is also typical of the Lehmann dough formulation but which I had not used in the original dough formulation. The flour I used was the King Arthur bread flour. In effect, the latest dough was a Lehmann NY style dough adapted for a room temperature fermentation of over 24 hours.

To prepare the dough, I started by combining the IDY and the flour in a bowl. As noted above, the amount of IDY, 0.06 grams, is equal to about 1 ¼ of a 1/64 teaspoon measuring spoon. Such a measuring spoon is often called a “drop” measuring spoon. An example of the “drop” measuring spoon is shown in the photo at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5583.msg47264.html#msg47264. Next, I added the water, which was at a temperature of about 59 degrees F, to the mixer bowl of my standard KitchenAid stand mixer. I then added the salt to the water in the mixer bowl and stirred to dissolve, about 30 seconds. The oil was then stirred in with the water/salt mixture. Using the flat beater attachment, and with the mixer at stir speed, I gradually added the flour/IDY mixture to the mixer bowl, a few tablespoons at a time, about two minutes. There was still some loose flour at the bottom of the bowl that was not taken up by the dough mass, so I stopped the mixer and incorporated the loose flour into the dough by hand, about 30-45 seconds. I then switched to the C-hook, and with the mixer at speed 2, I kneaded the dough for about 5 ½ minutes. The finished dough, which was formed into a round ball, was smooth and cohesive and a bit tacky.

The finished dough weight was 420 grams, which I trimmed to 415 grams, and the finished dough temperature was 67.8 degrees F. The dough was brushed with a bit of olive oil and placed into a one-quart glass Pyrex bowl. I placed two poppy seeds at the center of the top of the dough ball, spaced one inch apart (as discussed at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6914.0.html), and placed the container, with a fitted lid, on my countertop. My room temperature at that time was about 66 degrees F.

The dough fermented at a room temperature range of about 65-68 degrees F for about a day. After 24 hours, the spacing of the poppy seeds suggested that the dough had almost exactly doubled in volume, which was the target I was hoping I would achieve. At that point, there were a lot of fermentation bubbles visible at the bottom of the glass Pyrex container, which was a good fermentation clue, but only a few at the sides. Although I could have easily used the dough at that point, I decided as a scheduling matter to let it ferment for about four hours more. By that time, the dough had risen some more and there were more fermentation bubbles at both the bottom and sides of the Pyrex container. At no time did I punch down or reshape the dough in any manner.

After a total of 28 hours of fermentation, I decided that the time was right to use the dough. So, I proceeded to shape and form it into a 14” skin. The dough was quite extensible but it was not wet or sticky. However, because I intended to use a lot more toppings than usual, and although I believe that I could have dressed the skin on my peel without the dough sticking, I decided out of excess of caution after forming the skin to place it on a sheet of parchment paper on my peel. That way, I would take the issue of sticking out of the equation entirely and be able to take my time and dress the skin at leisure. (As it turned out, the finished baked pizza weighed about 2 1/3 pounds).

Rather than making my standard pepperoni test pizza, I decided this time to make a Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese buffalo chicken/bacon pizza. The Kraft’s mac and cheese was the standard boxed product as sold in just about every supermarket in America. I cooked up the pasta to the al dente stage and, after finishing the dish, I placed it in the refrigerator to help stop the cooking process.

The sequence of dressing the pizza was as follows. I started by brushing some Frank’s Red Hot (Original) sauce over the entire skin inside of the rim, so that there would be a taste of that sauce with almost every bite. I then distributed about 2/3 of a cheese blend over the pizza that I had prepared using low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella cheese (about 6 ounces) and a medium cheddar cheese (about 2 ounces) that I had comminuted to a coarse dice form using my Cuisinart food processor. Next, I distributed a fairly thick layer of the Kraft’s mac and cheese over the pizza, followed by pieces of chicken that were prepared by grilling and basting a large chicken breast in the Frank’s sauce and then cutting the chicken breast into about ½” pieces. I added more of the Frank’s sauce to the cut chicken pieces so that each piece was coated with the sauce. To complete the pizza, I distributed pieces of bacon over the pizza that had been cooked about 75% (about four pieces of bacon), and distributed the remaining mozzarella/cheddar cheese blend over the pizza. After I was done dressing the pizza, I trimmed the parchment paper so that it conformed more to the shape and size of the pizza.

The pizza was baked on a pizza stone that I had placed on the lowest oven rack position and preheated for about an hour at around 550 degrees F. The pizza baked on the stone for about seven minutes, whereupon I moved the pizza to the topmost oven rack position for about another minute to get increased top crust browning. As I moved the pizza to the top rack position, I removed the parchment paper from the oven.

The photos below show the finished pizza. I thought the pizza was very good, with a nice combination of tastes and textures. I particularly liked the finished crust. It had nice color both top and bottom, excellent flavor, and a rim that was chewy but with a crispy exterior and a soft interior that texturally reminded me of crusts that I have achieved before using natural starters. Overall, the crust had an artisan look and feel to it. What impressed me most, however, was how easy it was to make the dough and to achieve a finished crust color, flavor and texture that normally take a lot longer if cold fermentation is used. I also believe that I now have a better feel and understanding about how to make the necessary adjustments to accommodate the particular room temperature where the dough is to ferment.

Your long room-temperature fermented dough experiment was interesting. Deciding to increase your yeast, salt and hydration levels to achieve the room-temperature Lehmann dough is something I might try sometime at home. I would like to see how the taste of a long room-temperature fermented dough compares with a cold ferment.

Your pie did also looked tasty and artisan looking.

Did you find this pie with Kraft Macaroni and cheese to be better taste wise for the toppings than the Buffalo Chicken/Bacon Pizza you made before?

As I mentioned recently at Reply 76 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10213.msg91114.html#msg91114, the idea for the Kraft's Macaroni & Cheese buffalo chicken pizza came to me from a PMQTT post. Since I had an unused chicken breast to use and also some leftover partially-cooked bacon from another pizza making effort recently, I decided to use both of these items for the Kraft's Macaroni & Cheese buffalo chicken pizza. Using a one-day dough also allowed me to use the chicken breast before it started to go bad. That is actually the reason why I decided to go with a one-day dough. I also wanted to get the experiment under my belt before spring arrives in Texas.

As between the latest pizza and the usual buffalo chicken pizzas that I have made, I would say that I prefer the usual buffalo chicken pizzas. The main reason is that I like the blue cheese and its potent flavor. I did not think that the blue cheese would complement the cheddar flavors and it was for that reason I did not use any blue cheese. Also, I perhaps used too much of the macaroni and cheese on the latest pizza. I think I used about sixty percent of the total amount of mac and cheese I made. Overall, however, I thought that the combination of cheeses and toppings was a harmonious one. I also wanted a respite from the usual pepperoni pizzas that I use for test purposes when trying out new dough formulations where I want to keep variables down to a minimum.

Hey Peter,I'm making your latest 24hr dough today, or rather started last nite, using 600 gr of flour for a small plain cheese pie for the "picky little granddaughter" Ava Rose and a large 18 incher for the grownups. Now here's the deal, when I called and asked what she wanted on her pizza she asked "is it grampa's, NO" then I asked her if she wanted Pizza Hut and she screamed "YES! Cheese Please!!" Why I oughta.....well the trick is this, grampa kind of a smart ass so he saved the last Pizza Hut box anticipating this very opportunity! So when it's time to eat the neighbor kid will be handed my pizza in a Pizza Hut box at the back door to be delivered to the 5 year old smarty pants at the front door. I'll post pics later and .....the rest of the story.Back to the dough, I've re-formed it once this morning at 9 am, probably will again in a few minutes, then under the halogen lights under the overhead stove hood. Found it's a great place to rise dough, about 85+ degrees depending if I have the lights on high or low. Burned my finger good an them dang things first time I used it after it was installed By the way, I'll be using homemade Canadian Bacon I made a few days ago on the pie.JonKyrol HG (100%):Water (62%):IDY (0.024%):Salt (1.75%):Olive Oil (1%):Total (164.774%)

At 74% hydration, I assume that you will be using your oiled aluminum foil method to load the unbaked pizza onto your pizza stone, as you have done in the past with your cracker-style pizzas. At such a high hydration level, and assuming all else being equal, your dough is likely to ferment faster than my dough did and it may take somewhat longer to bake the pizza.

Must be the computer gremlins, I copied and pasted your last 24 hr formulation and it came up different Anyway I modified it to the correct formula. I used maybe twice the yeast due to it being over a year old, maybe 2, but being kept in the fridge in a sealed mason jar must hold it pretty good, still got plenty of oomph to it. But I'll be starting on a screen then sliding onto the stone to finish. That method has been working great for me and is much easier getting the pie from counter to peel to oven. So the bit extra yeast I'm sure is the culprit on the extra activity.Jon

for example 63% water , 2.45% salt and 0.07% yeast was overfermented in 22 hours , tried 59% water, 2.6% salt and 0.066% yeast and after 23 hours around 61-64F it is not even close to being ready to bake. perhaps 59-60% water (63% was way too high either way, and I think probably increased fermentation a bit), less salt and the same yeast amount should be the next try?

i am using roughly 0.07% not only because i think its about the right amount but it works out to 1/8t for 3 270g doughballs which is the smallest measuring device i have.

Long, room-temperature fermented doughs are a good news, bad news story. The good news is that the doughs are easy to make. The bad news is that temperature is the big elephant in the room.

If I were to devise a method that is the optimum one, it would be one that tells me how much yeast to use should I decide to change the parameters, specifically, the time period I want to ferment the dough and the room temperature at which the dough is to ferment. However, for such a method to work, there would have to be a reference dough that has achieved a particular condition, such as a doubling in volume of the dough over a particular period of time (although it could be some other expansion value). In the last dough formulation I posted, I used 0.024% IDY and got a doubling of the dough after almost exactly 24 hours. If I wanted to repeat the exercise but at a different room temperature, either higher or lower, or for a different fermentation time period, I would have to either inecrease or decrease the amount of IDY. To do this, I would use a method that already exists, courtesy of member November who described the way to make the necessary adjustments at Reply 6 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5028.msg42572.html#msg42572.

In my case, the Reference Rate would be the doubling of the dough in 24 hours at a room temperature of around 65 degrees F. The Predicted Rate would be the new time period and the new fermentation temperature. If you made long, room-temperature fermented doughs every day, you would develop a sixth sense and learn how to make the adjustments without having to do mathematical calculations as described above. This is essentially what the Neapolitan pizzaiolos learn to do, usually after years of experience, but with shorter fermentation time periods (unless you are Marco and using natural starters). In my case, I pretty much narrowed my choices to a summertime version and a wintertime version. Knowing those outer limits would most likely allow me to make adjustments for other times of year, either using my sixth sense or November's calculations.

Hey Peter,Pie was excellent. Did it up with the homemade can. bacon, caramelized onions, mush, gr olives and a bit of pineapple. The sauce had some oil cured black olives chopped up in it which added a surprising flavor profile to it. And the "Pizza Hut" pizza for the little spoiled one worked like a charm. She wouldn't touch anything that I made but when the doorbell rang with my pizza in a 'Pizza Hut box' she hit it like a hungry fish maintaining that their pizza was the best ever Everyone laughed and my middle daughter lost ten bucks to me, she thought Ava would be wise to it Anyway the grown up pie was great also. Have some pics of that one.Jon

That is really funny. I laughed for a few minutes over that one. At least she didn't say: "Grampa, are you trying to pull a fast one over on me? From the finished crust characteristics and the look and feel of that pizza, I can tell you used Pete-zza's long, room-temperature fermented dough with a minuscule amount of IDY to ensure that the dough lasts for about 24 hours."

Also the latest cheese blend I've been using is a 33/33/33 of Stella mozz, swiss and Del Caribe fresh queso cheese. The queso is very similar to fresh cheese curds pressed into a 5 lb block (best description). It even has a squeak when you bite/chew into a chunk, very addicting with a nice salty/brininess to it. Makes a very good cheese blend I've been liking a lot.Jon